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Labrador holds few clues to 2015 federal election outcome

Don’t look to the byelection in the riding of Labrador for clues as to how the 2015 federal election will play out. More instructive insights will be gained in the soon-to-be-vacant Montreal riding of Bourassa.

MONTREAL—Don’t look to the riding of Labrador for clues as to how the 2015 federal election will play out. That would be akin to consulting the weather in Victoria to decide whether to bring an umbrella to work in downtown Toronto.

Monday’s byelection may have been Justin Trudeau’s first test as Liberal leader but Labrador is anything but typical of the kind of urban riding where the next general election will be decided. It is not even necessarily representative of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador itself.

For confirmation of Labrador’s distinctive character, one only needs to look at the 2011 election result. Back then, ex-minister Peter Penashue was the only Conservative to win a seat in the province. It was only the second time in its history that Labrador had not sent a Liberal to the House of Commons and it arrived at the outcome by the narrowest of margins.

More instructive insights in the 2015 narrative or at least in the dynamics of the Quebec opposition battle that it is expected feature will be gained in the soon-to-be-vacant Montreal riding of Bourassa.

That will pave the way for the first byelection to be fought in Quebec under three rookie opposition leaders from that province.

The island of Montreal is probably the least Conservative-friendly area in the country and Stephen Harper’s crew will not have much of a dog in the fight.

Bloc Québécois Leader Daniel Paillé has yet to enter the Commons in that capacity but he has taken a pre-emptive pass at running in north-end Bourassa. It was once in the BQ fold but that was 16 years ago.

It remains to be seen whether Paillé will recruit a high-profile candidate to show the sovereigntist flag in Bourassa. A split federalist vote alone would not be enough to put the Bloc over the top in a riding where it ran third with only 16-per-cent support in 2011.

An ethnically diverse and economically challenged riding, Bourassa is not very different from Trudeau’s own Papineau riding. But it is also surrounded by recently won NDP territory, including Thomas Mulcair’s own seat.

In the last election, Coderre resisted the orange wave by virtue of his profile. But with the NDP in a bigger role in the House and with Mulcair as its leader, one would normally expect the New Democrats to up their game and find a star challenger to take on the Liberals.

One Liberal who is not expected to bid for Coderre’s seat is his former cabinet rival, Martin Cauchon.

On the heels of a humiliating leadership defeat, Cauchon is said to be considering a run for a provincial seat. He spent the last weeks of the leadership campaign taking shots at Trudeau’s approach to Quebec. In hindsight, he may have stayed in the federal race until its predictable end to lay the foundation for a switch to the provincial scene.

Trudeau has vouched to let grassroots Liberals have a bigger say in party affairs, and there is already a lot of local backroom manoeuvring for the party’s nomination in Bourassa.

Still, it could be risky for Trudeau to simply bet on the riding’s track record and his own coattails to carry the day in Bourassa.

Stéphane Dion did just that in Outremont in 2006. At the time, the Liberal leader used the local riding association as cover to bar Trudeau from running. The decision that helped pave the way for Mulcair’s first victory. The rest is history.

It is not every byelection that is a make-or-break test of leadership, but there are some that a leader cannot afford to lose. Trudeau has as much if not more on the line against the NDP and the Bloc in Bourassa as he did against the Conservatives in Labrador.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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